Chad Carpenter
International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD)
New York, NY
Tel: (212) 375-8727
Fax: (212) 656-1788
E-mail: chadc@iisd.org
IISDnet: http://iisd.ca/

August 2, 2000

1) US PROPOSES NEW STRATEGY TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING (NY Times) 2) US WARNING ON POLLUTION (BBC News, Independent, Guardian) 3) UK-FUNDING AGREED FOR EMISSIONS TRADING (Financial Times, ENS) 4) JAPAN PLANS TO USE FORESTS TO REDUCE CO2 (Japan Times) 5) SHELL CHAIR TO LEAD G8 ENERGY TASKFORCE (Financial Times) 6) US-DOE COMMITS $15 MILLION TO BLOW THE GREENHOUSE DOWN (CNN)

7) FORD TO BOOST SUVS FUEL ECONOMY (NY Times, MSNBC) 8) ITALY'S ENEL AGREES TO CUT GAS EMISSIONS (Reuters) 9) UK INDUSTRY FORCED TO PAY 50% MORE FOR GAS (Times of London) 10) KEEP NUCLEAR ENERGY, EXPERTS TELL FRENCH PM (Reuters) 11) UKRAINE WILL GO ON USING NUCLEAR ENERGY (Russia Today) 12) BULGARIA SAYS ENERGY REFORM ON RIGHT TRACK (Investor Insight)

13) ACTION URGED ON AUSTRALIA ELECTRICITY EMISSIONS (Reuters) 14) COOLANTS SPARK HEATED DEBATE (Financial Times) 15) UK-CLIMATE LEVY FUNDS FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY (Financial Times) 16) EPISCOPALIANS TAKE STAND ON ENERGY (NY Times, SF Chronicle) 17) AUSTRALIAN GREEN ELECTRICITY MARKET TO START 2001 (Reuters) 18) SOLAR CAR SETS DISTANCE RECORD (MSNBC)

19) NASA-GREENLAND'S ICE THINS (CSM, ABC News, Washington Post) 20) WATERS NEAR EQUATOR SHOW ALARMING WARMING (Washington Post) 21) NEW GREENHOUSE GAS IDENTIFIED, POTENT AND RARE (NY Times, BBC) 22) CARBON DIOXIDE MAKES LEAVES LESS HEALTHFUL (Seattle Times) 23) FIELD TRIALS ON GAS EMISSIONS (Financial Times) 24) ALGAE COMES TO THE AID OF COAL-FIRED PLANTS (CNN)

25) CHINESE FARMERS-NEW DESERT ERODES THEIR WAY OF LIFE (NY Times) 26) REPORT: HEAT WAVES RISE STEEPLY IN LAST 50 YEARS (ABC News) 27) DROUGHT LEAVES KENYANS IN NEED OF FOOD AID (CNN) 28) DOCTORS TURN FOCUS TO GLOBAL WARMING (Seattle Post) 29) ARCTIC SHORTCUT WORRIES CANADIANS (New York Times) 30) DROUGHT IN WEST PUTS FISHERIES IN HOT WATER (CNN)

ON THE WEB

31) US SENATORS-BILL TO PROMOTE CARBON SEQUESTRATION 32) US DOE-PROJECTS TO CAPTURE AND STORE GREENHOUSE GASES

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

33) REWARDS FOR LIMITING EMISSIONS (Business Day-South Africa) 34) RICH COUNTRIES-TAKE RESPONSIBILITY (Financial Times) 35) G7 BLOWING HOT AIR ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE (Toronto Star) 36) THE KYOTO PROTOCOL: A FIRST STEP (Earth Times) __________________________________________________

1) U.S. PROPOSES NEW STRATEGY TO FIGHT GLOBAL WARMING New York Times 2 August Internet: http://www10.nytimes.com/library/national/science/080200sci-environ-warm.htm l

Preparing for renewed international negotiations on cutting levels of heat-trapping gases that may be warming the climate, the United States is proposing that countries get just as much credit for using forests and farmers' fields to sop up carbon dioxide, the chief warming gas, as they would for cutting emissions from smokestacks and tail pipes. Scientists have known for decades that trees and other plants absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and some soils do as well. In theory, pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere would allow countries to emit some heat-trapping, or greenhouse, gases without adding to the overall problem.

Clinton administration officials and some scientists said last night that incentives to plant trees and to farm in ways that lock away carbon were essential for stabilizing the climate. In addition, they said, bringing farmers and foresters into the battle is likely to be crucial if the Senate, which has so far firmly opposed ratifying any international climate treaty, is to change its view. But the position is being criticized by some private environmental groups, which have pressed to cut the burning of coal and oil, which caused most of the carbon dioxide buildup in the first place. They point to uncertainties about how long plants and soils could continue to absorb carbon.

And the proposal is at odds with the stance of the European Union which, given its relative lack of open land for tree-planting, would be at a disadvantage. The State Department laid out the United States' approach in documents filed last night with a United Nations office that is overseeing talks aimed at carrying out the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at averting any dangerous climate warming. Thirty-eight other industrialized countries were scheduled to file their proposals last night, as well. The Kyoto agreement has been signed by the United States and more than 100 other countries but has not yet been ratified, and many details remain to be ironed out, with two rounds of negotiations coming in September and again in November.

If the agreement is ratified, the United States would commit itself to cutting its emissions of carbon dioxide by 2010 to 7 percent below the emissions in 1990. Given the growth in the economy and fuel use since 1990, administration officials say, the only way to come anywhere near that target is by adopting every possible strategy, including the agricultural approach. Vice President Al Gore was deeply involved in crafting the Kyoto treaty and any deadlock in talks would be a blow to him.

On the other hand, although Gov. George W. Bush of Texas has said he believes global warming is a significant problem, he opposes ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, saying it would unfairly burden the United States. White House officials said Mr. Gore was being apprised of the proposed strategy. Michael Oppenheimer, chief scientist of Environmental Defense, a private group, said that whatever program finally emerges in the next rounds of talks, it must not allow any country to get too much credit for things it is already doing, like, for example, planting trees on land that was clearcut several years ago.

"Done well, credit for forests and farming could help jumpstart a solution to the global warming problem," Dr. Oppenheimer said. "Done poorly, it could undermine the credibility of the whole Kyoto agreement." David B. Sandalow, the assistant secretary of state for oceans and environmental affairs, said the United States would not want any final climate plan to permit loopholes allowing clearcutting or other bad land practices to get credit. But, taking a position at odds with some environmental groups, he added that the country's position would be to try to get credit for most of the carbon dioxide being absorbed by the country's trees and crops -- about 300 million metric tons a year is the projection for that tally by 2010.

That compares to the projected total emissions of more than 2.1 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide a year from industry, cars and other sources if current energy trends continue, he said. He added that keeping some focus on farming and trees would keep the cost of fighting global warming down. Estimates are that it will be much cheaper for a country to absorb pollution than to reduce the output of these gases. "We need strong incentives for parties to adopt practices that protect the atmosphere at low cost," Mr. Sandalow said last night.

Canada, Russia, Australia and other countries with lots of forests and farming are all tending to align with the American position. Also, according to several Japanese news services, Japan last night submitted similar plans, anticipating a large role for tree planting. Its focus is probably not so much on current events but on an anticipated round of talks extending actions on global warming to the third world, where Japan and other rich countries could get credit for investing in forest projects. Some private environmental groups are vigorously opposing this approach.

Jennifer Morgan, the director of the climate change campaign at the World Wildlife Fund, an international group, said that forests and soils are, at best, a temporary storehouse for carbon, and one that can be broken open by later changes in practices or by unforseen forces like wildfire, droughts, or insect infestations - - all of which could abruptly unlock millions of tons of banked carbon. "Soil can be a great absorber of carbon, but if you plow too deeply two years in a row you can release it all back into the air," she said. "We need to find the most secure way of reaching these goals, and that is to focus on cutting emissions from things like power plants." Last night, a White House official said that some environmental groups -- historically focused on cleaning pollution -- were being too inflexible on the issue. "Carbon is carbon, right?" said the official.

See also- Seattle Post: http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/warm02.shtml

Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicago.tribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-0008020264,00.htm l

2) US WARNING ON POLLUTION

BBC News Saturday, 22 July, 2000 Internet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_846000/846118.stm

The chief American negotiator on climate change has admitted for the first time that the United States is unlikely to meet its commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions, without buying other countries' pollution rights. The Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, Frank Loy, said a target to cut emissions in the US by a third within 10 years - as set out by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol - was a difficult task.

To meet it, Mr Loy said the US would have to take full advantage of the mechanism by which countries can compensate for heavy pollution levels by buying pollution credits from other countries that do meet their targets. The US is the world's biggest polluter, producing some 35% of the greenhouse gas emissions which lead to global warming. Environmental groups say poorer countries are having to bear the consequences of global warming, such as floods and hurricanes.

Greater burden Mr Loy said US commitments made at Kyoto imposed a greater obligation on the US than for other countries. But, he said, there was no question of trying to renegotiate the treaty at the forthcoming sixth global meeting of the parties to the Kyoto Protocol at the Hague in November. "We are not seeking a change to either dates or numbers, despite recognition of the fact that we have a tough chore," he said.

Emissions trading The way forward, he said, was to take full advantage of market mechanisms, including emissions trading. This allows excessively polluting countries to exceed their targets by buying "credits" from others who fall short of their emissions ceiling. The UK and the rest of the European Union want to limit the amount countries can trade in pollution, but Mr Loy said that attempts to impose restrictions were "conceptually wrong". Last month, the US Government warned that on present trends, average US temperatures will rise by at least three degrees Celsius by 2100.

See also- Guardian: http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000727010608&query =%22climate+change%22&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/UK/Environment/2000-07/environment220700.s html

Reuters: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7573&newsDate=24-Jul-2000

3) FUNDING AGREED FOR EMISSIONS TRADING SCHEME Financial Times

25-Jul-2000

Ministers have given the go-ahead to using a crucial injection of taxpayers' money to make sure Britain is one of the first countries to develop a large-scale emissions trading scheme for greenhouse gases. It is a boost for industry efforts, backed by more than 100 companies andtrade bodies, including BP Amoco, National Power, British Airways and Corus, the steel group, to design a workable scheme. Michael Meacher, the environment minister, said that the announcement would "kick start" industry plans for a scheme and would deliver a "significant" reduction in greenhouse gas pollution.

Mr Meacher said the government would provide Pounds 30m to finance incentives for companies to cap carbon emissions. This was the amount requested by the Emissions Trading Group, the industry body that has been developing the scheme. The government has not yet decided how the system will work. However, it is likely to take the form of an auction in which companies will bid for funding in return for promised cuts in emissions. Once the caps have been set, companies that succeed in making more than their agreed cuts will be able to sell the surplus to companies that find it more difficult or expensive. A secondary market in financial derivatives is also likely to develop.

Officials estimate that the scheme could cut carbon equivalent emissions by between 0.5m and 2m tonnes by 2010, ensuring that Britain meets its international pollution control objective set at the Kyoto climate summit. The Kyoto target is for cuts of 12.5 per cent by 2010, from the 1990 total of 211.7m tonnes of carbon equivalent. The government has already announced measures likely to produce cuts of 13 per cent, but officials said emissions trading would provide a useful "buffer".

No decisions have been made on whether the Pounds 30m funding will continue after the end of the government's comprehensive spending review period in 2003. However, business leaders said they had been assured of funding for up to three years. Rodney Chase, deputy chief executive of BP Amoco and chairman of the Emissions Trading Group, said the scheme "should keep the UK in the vanguard of international emissions trading". Establishing a lead in emissions trading could make London a natural home for an international market in permits and associated derivative instruments.

No country has established a full-scale emissions trading scheme for carbon, although small schemes are operating in Denmark and Canada, and there is some speculative trading of credits and futures instruments in Australia and the US. However, the European Commission has said that it wants to see a European-wide scheme by 2005, and most observers expect a wider international scheme to follow.

See also- ENS: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul2000/2000L-07-27-11.html

Reuters: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7586&newsDate=25-Jul-2000

4) JAPAN PLANS TO USE FORESTS TO REDUCE CARBON DIOXIDE Japan Times

Aug. 2, 2000 Internet: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20000802b2.htm

Japan was planning to notify the U.N. conference on climate change later Tuesday that it wants to achieve a cut of between 3.2 percent and 3.7 percent in carbon dioxide emissions -- more than half of its 6 percent reduction target -- through forest absorption, government sources said Tuesday. Japan is required under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by 6 percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012. However, the protocol allows industrial countries to include increases in carbon dioxide absorption by forests through activities such as afforestation. In 1998, the government said it wanted a 3.7 percent cut in carbon dioxide emissions to be attributed to absorption. However, if forest absorption is interpreted more strictly, the amount will only be 3.2 percent.

The Environment Agency will consult with other ministries and agencies concerned before submitting the report to the conference's secretariat, located in the German city of Bonn, later in the day. By Tuesday, parties to the U.N. conference on climate change are to submit lists of activities they believe should be included in calculating reduction targets, as well as the proportion to be attributed to means such as absorption. The official criteria for "sinks" -- methods such as the use of forests and land to absorb carbon dioxide -- will be decided at the sixth Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, to be held in November in The Hague.

Japan had been working to expand the use of forest absorption to secure the maximum 3.7 percent cut through sinks. The use of sinks is controversial as it will enable some countries to virtually meet their greenhouse gas reduction goals without implementing measures to actually cut output. If the conference establishes a more limited interpretation of sinks, Japan will be required to seek other ways to achieve the remaining 0.5 percent carbon dioxide cut, the sources said.

5) SHELL CHAIRMAN TO JOINTLY LEAD G8 ENERGY TASKFORCE Financial Times

Jul 27, 2000 Internet: http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000727000219&query =%22global+warming%22&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, chairman of the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, has been appointed co-chairman of the renewable energy taskforce, which was established at the G8 summit last weekend. Sir Mark, who is the industry chairman, will lead the taskforce jointly with Corrado Clini, director-general of the Italian environment ministry, who is the public sector chairman. The taskforce will report to next year's G8 summit in Genoa with practical recommendations for increasing the supply and distribution of renewable energy. As well as business and government representatives, it will involve developing countries, non- governmental organisations, international finance institutions and other energy experts.

Sir Mark stressed the need to make renewable energy commercially viable. "If the use of renewable sources is to expand rapidly, they must be made commercial so that investment is attracted," he said. "I am delighted that G8 governments and businesses can get together to see how this can be enabled most effectively. This has to be about renewables as an energy business rather than just a pious hope," he said.

Renewable energy is regarded as an important way to increase the quality of life in developing countries, given that some 2bn people worldwide do not have access to electricity. Renewable energy plays an important part in promoting sustainable development, because it avoids increasing levels of pollution and global warming. Tony Blair, the prime minister, said he was confident that the two chairmen would be able to achieve a great deal in time for next year's G8 summit in Genoa. "Sir Mark has extensive experience in this field, including through the Shell Foundation's programme on sustainable energy," he said.

6) DOE COMMITS $15 MILLION TO HELP BLOW THE GREENHOUSE DOWN CNN

July 31, 2000 Internet: http://europe.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/31/carbon.capture.enn/index.html

The Department of Energy acknowledges that greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are changing Earth's atmosphere. To prove the point, the department will commit $15 million over the next three years to find affordable ways to capture and store the gases that contribute to the greenhouse condition. "Our position is that there clearly is an effect of increased carbon gases in the atmosphere," said Bob Porter of the department's fossil energy division. "There clearly is an alteration of natural processes because of anthropogenic gases." What remains to be seen, said Porter, is the magnitude of the problem.

The DOE is funding 13 private-sector research teams to study carbon sequestration, a relatively new solution to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration captures greenhouse gases, storing them or recycling them into useful products. "The selection of these projects signals our strongest commitment to date for carbon sequestration research," said Energy Secretary Bill Richardson. "Should these projects result in real breakthroughs, America and the world will have a new set of options to help meet the challenges of global climate change." The DOE's goal is to reduce the cost of carbon sequestration to $10 or less per net ton of carbon emissions by 2015. Costs in this range would add less than one cent per kilowatt-hour to an average electric bill.

"We're heartened by the fact that industry sees the same potential that we see (in carbon sequestration)," said Porter. The research teams have agreed to contribute an additional $10 million to the project. "We're not sure if carbon sequestration is a viable option," said Porter. "And the right option has to be economically, technologically and environmentally viable." The 13 projects constitute the first of two rounds of funding. Proposals for the second round are due Aug. 31.

Separation and Capture

Media and Process Technology Co., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To develop a high-temperature membrane that can separate carbon dioxide from gases formed when coal reacts with steam and oxygen in a coal gasifier.

Research Triangle Institute, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. To develop a low-cost way to separate carbon dioxide from the flue gas of existing fossil-fuel combustion plants with a reusable sodium-based chemical.

Sequestration of carbon dioxide in geologic formations o Advanced Resources International, Houston, Texas. To use enhanced coal-bed methane recovery technology to field test the viability of storing carbon dioxide in coal seams in the San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado.

Texas Tech University, Lubbock Texas. To use a nuclear magnetic resonance well-logging technique to identify the most suitable geologic formations for long-term carbon dioxide storage.

University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. To study saline reservoirs in the Colorado Plateau and Rocky Mountain region to determine how much carbon dioxide can be stored, what happens to the stored gas and what the environmental risks are.

Geological Survey of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. To determine how much carbon dioxide can be stored in the Black Warrior coal- bed methane region in Alabama and identify other storage sites for mass carbon dioxide sequestration.

Ocean sequestration

Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, California. To use a combination of remotely operated deep-sea vehicle technology, time-lapse cameras and other techniques to determine the long-term effects of carbon dioxide injected deep into the ocean.

Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. To conduct the first direct analyses of frozen carbon dioxide deposits, known as hydrates, on the sea floor.

Terrestrial (soil and vegetation) sequestration o Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas. To evaluate a reclamation/reforestation program that would sequester carbon in trees on abandoned mine lands in the Appalachian region.

Advanced concepts

Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. To enhance photosynthesis by attaching photosynthetic organisms to specially designed growths arranged in a "bioreactor" with special lighting to enhance the rate of carbon dioxide conversion.

Physical Sciences Inc., Andover, Massachusetts. To develop technology that uses selected species of micro-algae to photosynthesize carbon dioxide from power-plant exhaust gases. Aquasearch Inc. of Kailua-Kona Hawaii and the Hawaii Natural Energy Institute at the University of Hawaii are teamed with PSI for the research.

Modeling and assessments

Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. To develop a state-of-the-art computer model to assess carbon dioxide- sequestration options and costs.

University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas. To develop a digital data base that catalogs carbon dioxide source-to-sequestration site information in Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio.

7) FORD TO BOOST SUVS FUEL ECONOMY

New York Times July 27, 2000

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Ford Motor Co., betting it can please both environmentalists and consumers, will redesign its profitable and popular gas-guzzling sport utility vehicle, to make it more fuel efficient. The country's No. 2 automaker intends to increase the fuel economy of its SUV fleet by 25 percent, from 18 miles per gallon to 23, by 2005. Ford does not plan to raise sticker prices to meet its goal, confident that demand will offset higher production costs.

The more efficient engines produce less carbon dioxide, meaning air pollution is reduced. ``We fundamentally believe this is what customers want,'' Ford president and chief executive officer Jac Nasser said Thursday during a speech at the National Press Club. Nasser said he is confident Americans will steer their purchases to companies they perceive as environmentally responsible. ``I don't think anyone in this room has ever had a problem believing that we like to make money and we're convinced that this is the best way to do it,'' he said.

SUVs have been one of the fastest growing segments of the market, making up about 19 percent of new vehicle sales. They are also among the most profitable, with some carrying profits up to $15,000 per vehicle. Environmental groups that had been pushing the federal government to require better fuel economy praised the move. The Union of Concerned Scientists said it was ``by far the most aggressive move Ford has made for the environment to date.'' Ford's announcement comes amid a summer of record-high pump prices and follows by two months company Chairman William Clay Ford Jr.'s startling concession SUVs are environmentally unfriendly, chug gas and can endanger drivers in smaller vehicles.

Ford officials say they will improve fuel economy mostly by using advanced technology on the SUVs it already sells -- reducing weight, improving aerodynamics and making engines and transmissions more efficient. ``There will be attention to every nut and bolt,'' said Jim Clarke, chief of powertrain engineering at the Ford Research Lab. ``There's not a single silver bullet.'' Nasser said about 70 percent of the improvements will come through technology and about 30 percent from production changes.

Ford says an average SUV owner will use 1,700 fewer gallons of gas -- worth about $2,400 -- though the life of the improved vehicles. Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club's director of global warming and energy programs, said he hoped other automakers will match Ford's initiative. ``This is a very significant improvement in the pollution spewing out of the SUVs,'' Becker said. ``It will be much more significant if the other companies match it and Ford spreads these improvements throughout its entire fleet.''

The Clinton administration has pushed for at least studying changes in Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE, standards, but has been blocked by Congress and the strong auto industry lobby. ``What we just announced, we think, is a good example of why CAFE is arbitrary and doesn't make sense,'' Nasser said. ``You're better off letting the competitive forces in technology address the issue of improved fuel economy.'' Congress in 1975 set CAFE standards at 27.5 miles per gallon on new passenger cars and 20.7 mpg for light trucks. A manufacturer's CAFE for autos is the average fuel economy for all its cars, from the smallest subcompact to full-size sedan.

David Lemmon, spokesman for Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., one of the leading supporters of higher CAFE standards, said Ford's announcement marks a key departure for the auto industry. ``It changes the debate because all of the major auto manufacturers have been saying this is something that they couldn't do without raising prices dramatically,'' he said. ``Now Ford says they have the technology and can do it so it kind of shoots the argument of the other companies out of the water.''

Ford said earlier this year it would introduce a version of its Escape compact SUV powered by a gasoline/electric hybrid system, which the company says will get better mileage than any of its other SUVs. The Escape is being shipped to dealers now. Ford is scheduled to introduce a new version of its Ford Explorer/Mercury Mountaineer SUVs this fall, followed next year by a new version of the larger Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. The redesigns are expected to be significantly lighter than their predecessors, which would allow Ford to use smaller, more efficient engines. The company could also update its truck engines with technology to match its more efficient and modern car engines, such as variable valve timing.

More exotic technologies, such as a cylinder shut-off system and computer-shifted transmissions, are being tested. Other automakers have made smaller moves toward higher fuel economy. General Motors Corp. has improved the gas mileage of its full-size SUVs and pickup trucks by 5 percent over the last three years.

DaimlerChrysler AG has said it is ready to sell a gas/electric version of its Dodge Durango SUV -- if Congress passes a $3,000 tax credit to make such a vehicle comparable in price with current models.

See also- MSNBC: http://www.msnbc.com/news/438222.asp?cp1=1

8) ITALY'S ENEL AGREES TO CUT GAS EMISSIONS Reuters

July 21, 2000 Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7541&newsDate=21-Jul-2000

ROME - Italy's Enel yesterday signed an agreement with the ministry of the environment to cut gas emissions, an accord which will require an investment of 8 to 10 trillion lire ($3.8-4.8 billion) by 2006. The announcement was made during the presentation of Enel's 1999 Report on the Environment. According to the agreement, emissions of carbon dioxide will be reduced by 20 percent from 1990 levels as part of a programme which will involve all Enel's plants increasing production efficiency and investing in renewable resources. Enel invested around 1.3 trillion lire ($650 million) in the environment in 1999 and achieved a 17 percent reduction in the emission of sulphur dioxide.

9) UK INDUSTRY FORCED TO PAY 50% MORE FOR GAS Times of London

August 1 2000 Internet: http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/2000/08/01/timbizbiz01037.html

BRITISH industry is being forced to pay up to 50 per cent more for gas because of booming demand for UK gas on the Continent. Wholesale gas prices, which are paid by companies in sectors such as steel and chemicals, have almost doubled since the start of the year, causing outrage among industrial users already hit by the government's Climate Change Levy.

Like the price of petrol, the high cost of gas is likely to become a political issue, with price rises expected for residential households in October. The main cause of the price pressure, which has pushed the cost per thermal unit from 12p-13p at the beginning of the year to 20p, is a rush by big oil and gas producers to profit from inflated prices on the Continent. Industrial users blame governments on the Continent for failing to open up markets to competition.

Transco, the company that operates Britain's pipeline network, said growth in demand for gas had surged 50 per cent. But Robert Bolt, regulatory director at Transco, said the majority of the increase over the past six months had been exports to the Continent. "In Europe there is a close link between gas prices and oil prices," he said. "It is pushing gas through the interconnector."

Unlike the UK, where competition has created a market driven by supply and demand, gas prices on the Continent are fixed under long-term agreements to the price of oil, which has more than doubled over the past year. Major oil companies, such as Shell and BP Amoco, are shipping the equivalent of 10 per cent of the UK's gas consumption abroad, chasing profits in high-priced European gas markets. "We are talking about a managed illiberal market," said a Transco spokesman. "All that can be done is to encourage liberalisation."

Ofgem, the energy regulator said nothing could be done about the likely impact on consumers. "If people choose to sell gas through the interconnector because it is more lucrative, they are free to do so," a spokesman said. Big consumers in the steel and chemical sectors are furious. Jeremy Nicholson of the Energy Intensive Users Group said: "We think Ofgem's response is inadequate. Prices for large industrial customers have gone up 40-50 per cent."

10) KEEP NUCLEAR ENERGY, EXPERTS TELL FRENCH PM Reuters

July 31, 2000 Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7644

PARIS - Top scientists said on Friday the way to keep France's electricity bill at its lowest over the next half century was to continue relying on nuclear power, which already provides 80 percent of French electricity. "Since the nuclear industry exists, it is clear it is in our economic interest to prolong it because the spendings are vastly compensated by the kilowatt hours received in return," said Bejamin Dessus, one of three scientists who presented Prime Minister Lionel Jospin with a government- commissioned report on the subject.

Dessus however added that "while it is true that, on a strictly economic level, nuclear is best, there are also criteria of a political, environmental or societal nature which come into play." The scientists insisted at a news conference their report contained no specific recommendations but gave options aimed at enabling France's leaders to prepare for the future.

France currently depends more heavily on nuclear power for domestic energy than any other western European nation but opposition from environmental groups is strong. Public opinion is also more sensitive to nuclear safety than at any previous time. Neighbouring Germany, which draws about 30 percent of its energy from nuclear power, has already decided to phase out its nuclear power stations with the last one to close in the mid-2020s. One of the three French experts, Rene Pellat of the Atomic Energy Commission, told the news conference: "France's nuclear power stations are safe but one can always do better.

"What the public is afraid of is nuclear waste but technological progress is being made in this field which will reduce the amount of waste though never entirely do away with it, " Pellat said. "One precent will always remain and what we need to do is to minimise its effects." Conclusions of the 300-page report spoke of keeping nuclear power stations operational for life spans of up to 45 years. The most modern French nuclear power stations are four years old. The scientists said that technological progress was so swift and hard to predict it was difficult to calculate future energy needs. "The estimates we have for 2050 run between 530 and 720 terawatts," Dessus said.

Uncertainty about the future was also tied to possible cooperation between European states in the energy field, the report said. The scientists told reporters new choices would have to be made from around 2025 when entirely new sources of energy may have been discovered. One conclusion they reached however was to repeat a basic tenet of French policy, which was to warn against dependency on oil for fear of being held hostage by oil producing nations for political or economic reasons. France plunged headlong into nuclear power after the 1973 oil crisis born of that year's Arab- Israeli war, during which the public faced severe petrol shortages.

UKRAINE WILL GO ON USING NUCLEAR ENERGY SAYS KUCHMA Russia Today

12 July Internet: http://www.russiatoday.com/news.php3?id=177918&section=CIS

LEIPZIG, Germany,, Jul 12, 2000 -- (Agence France Presse) Ukraine's President Leonid Kuchma said Wednesday the country will complete two nuclear power stations under construction and go on using nuclear power after the closure this year of the ill-fated Chernobyl plant.He was speaking after talks in Leipzig with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whose government has decided to phase out nuclear energy and would like Ukraine to renounce its use too. Kuchma said that the two power stations in question were 90 percent built. "We can in no way renounce using these reactors," he said after wide-ranging bilateral talks with Schroeder and other German ministers.

The Ukrainian president announced last month that the Chernobyl power station, one of whose reactors exploded with catastrophic consequences in 1986, would finally close down by December 15. His government is seeking western financial credits for the completion of the two new power stations it is building. Kuchma said Wednesday: "The reactors will be completed whatever the conditions -- to international standards and under international supervision."

He said if there had been no prospect of western financial credits Ukraine would have completed the plants long ago using its own resources. The German government is opposed to using western credits for this purpose, Chancellor Schroeder reiterated Wednesday. He said Germany remained committed to helping Ukraine develop non-nuclear energy. Germany last month hosted an international donors' conference to gather funds to help make the wrecked Chernobyl reactor safe. So far 715 million dollars (754 million euros) out of an estimated needed 788 million have been pledged. ((c) 2000 Agence France Presse)

BULGARIA SAYS ENERGY REFORM ON RIGHT TRACK Investor Insight

13 July 2000

SOFIA, Jul 13, 2000 -- (Reuters) The head of Bulgaria's State Energy Agency said on Thursday first steps in the energy sector reform showed it was moving in the right direction. "The start of the restructuring of the energy sector is a fact and we can say now we are on the right track," Ivan Shilyashki told Reuters in an interview. The energy sector reform, aimed at curbing state subsidies and inefficient production and attracting key investors, appeared to be the toughest part of Bulgaria's recent talks with the International Monetary Fund, Sofia's biggest creditor.

The plan was initially criticized by some energy experts and several officials from the National Electricity Company (NEC), who resigned before the start of the reform. Initial workers' protests at some power utilities slowly died out. Under the law, Bulgaria's power market is due to be liberalized from January 2002. "A month after utilities were separated from the (power) monopoly, managers found ways to immediately cut waste of equipment and funds, something which was difficult to do when they were part of the NEC," Shilyashki said.

The first step of the reform was to break up the monopoly of the state-owned NEC, which owned 90 percent of the country's electricity generation, 100 percent of the delivery and transmission. It involved the legal separation of power generation, delivery and distribution. Under the plan seven state firms for power distribution were set up based on the NEC's former distribution branches.

"We will prepare the distribution companies for privatization and in the middle of next year will seek major strategic investors for them," Shilyashki said. Major electricity producers such as the Kozloduy nuclear power plant, which produces half of the country's power, and the biggest coal-fired plants were separated from NEC and registered in court as separate firms. NEC has become the country's single buyer of electricity from distributors to ensure the power system's stability and guarantee financial flows, Shilyashki said. "Earlier this week we have transformed the NEC into a National Electricity Transmission Company. Now it owns the biggest hydro-power units (only)," Shilyashki said.

The second stage of the restructuring has started with preparing and sealing contracts for purchasing power with the distribution firms. Business plans with transmission firms were also being worked out. Shilyashki played down local media concerns that the restructuring could cause power shortages. He also said frozen heating prices for this winter season and reduced power price hikes until mid-2001, agreed with the IMF, would not jeopardize the reform.

ACTION URGED ON AUSTRALIA ELECTRICITY EMISSIONS Reuters July 18, 2000 Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7495&newsDate=18-Jul-2000

MELBOURNE - The Australian government should tackle ballooning greenhouse gas emissions through policies to improve energy efficiency, the Electricity Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) said. ESAA managing director Keith Orchison said Australia as a nation lagged the OECD energy efficiency average due to factors such as ageing motor drives used in manufacturing and poor building insulation.

Australia's electricity generators were already working to lower emissions, but faced limits on the improvements they could make before costs would have to be passed on in the form of higher power prices, hindering Australia's competitiveness. Orchison said the government should look more closely at the efficiency of industry and the individual, possibly introducing efficiency standards or incentives.

"If we set as a goal for Australia that by 2010 we were at the OECD average for end-use efficiency we would reduce the growth of electricity demand by something like 30,000 gigawatt hours," Orchison told Reuters. "We would reduce the amount of greenhouse gasses by between 20 and 30 million tonnes," he said.

The National Greenhouse Gas Inventory released last week showed Australia was likely to exceed its Kyoto Protocol commitment to limit emissions to an eight percent rise on 1990 levels by 2010. Emissions, not including a land clearing offset, were in 1998 up 16.9 percent on 1990 levels. Electricity generation emissions, which accounted for 37 percent of the total, were up 30.6 percent from 1990 levels.

Australia's use of low-cost but high-polluting brown and black coal for generation has risen as a deregulated market ensures it is used ahead of more expensive alternatives. At the same time economic growth and lifestyle changes are increasing power demand. Orchison said generators had voluntarily cut their emissions by five millions tonnes a year and agreed to efficiency standards with the government that would cost A$260 million and cut emissions a further four millions tonnes a year from 1990 levels. Legislation to boost renewable energy usage by two percent by 2010 is before Federal Parliament, and the government says it has invested almost A$1 billion in programmes to cut emissions.

Orchison said it would be impractical to tackle the greenhouse issue only through using expensive renewable energy such as wind and solar power. He said massive capital investment would be needed to achieve the same emission savings from renewable energy projects that could be more easily won from end-use efficiencies.

COOLANTS SPARK HEATED DEBATE Financial Times July 25 2000 Internet: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT35YAGU3BC&liv e=true&useoverridetemplate=IXLZHNNP94C

When Coca-Cola announced in late June that it was phasing out its use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) in its cold-drink equipment, it pleased one lobby and offended another. Greenpeace, the campaigning group, hailed it as a breakthrough in its fight against global warming. It said it was a tribute to supporters who had sent letters, faxes and e-mails protesting against Coca-Cola's use of a "dirty" greenhouse gas in millions of fridges. However, manufacturers of HFCs argue that Coca-Cola's decision is a misguided gesture in response to a single-issue campaign, which will have damaging social, economic and environmental consequences. They say that a move away from HFCs is a threat to safety, industrial competitiveness, billions of dollars of investment and even efforts to safeguard the ozone layer and combat global warming.

On the face of it, the case for eradicating HFCs is strong. Originally introduced as an environmentally acceptable alternative to chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which deplete the ozone layer, they are now condemned as potent global-warming gases. Molecule for molecule, they have 150-4,000 times more global-warming potential than carbon dioxide. Virtually unused in 1990, HFCs are expected to account for 1-3 per cent of total emissions of greenhouse gases in 2010 in most developed countries, according to United Nations estimates. They find their way into the atmosphere as a result of leaks, inadvertent venting, and emissions from fire extinguishers and industrial processes. HFCs are controlled by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change; both the Danish and UK governments have said that their use is unsustainable.

But what are the alternatives? Concern about HFCs has reignited interest in "natural refrigerants" - air, water, ammonia, carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons - which were used before CFCs in the 1930s. The cost of "natural" refrigerants is typically much lower than HFCs and they do not affect the environment in an unknown way. But although they show promise for particular applications, they all have disadvantages. Compressed air, which cools aircraft and some modern trains as it expands, is relatively inefficient. Water is occasionally used to cool factories, but it needs to be operated in a deep vacuum and requires powerful compressors.

Ammonia has been common in industrial refrigeration for several decades, and has a good safety record. But because it is toxic, it has to be housed in a gas-tight cabinet and needs water tanks to dissolve any ammonia in case of a leak. Carbon dioxide is safe, non-toxic and can form a very compact system, although it is relatively inefficient and needs to be operated at high pressure. Manufacturing advances that permit tubing of thin, strong aluminium instead of heavy steel are extending carbon dioxide to small systems, such as cars and portable air conditioners. Some of the most promising alternatives to HFCs are hydrocarbons such as propane and isobutane. These have little impact on the greenhouse effect because, unlike methane, another hydrocarbon, they break down quickly and do not accumulate in the atmosphere. Much of the impetus for hydrocarbons has come from Greenpeace, which in 1992 encouraged an East German refrigerator company to develop the "Greenfreeze" fridge. Its success encouraged many large household- appliance suppliers to introduce their own line of Greenfreeze fridges, which are now sold throughout Europe. Hydrocarbon-based fridges have also done well in China.

Hydrocarbons are becoming less rare outside the home too. In the UK, hydrocarbons account for about 4 per cent of the refrigeration market. J. Sainsbury, the supermarket chain, uses them to cool its superstore in Greenwich, London, and Scottish & Newcastle, the brewing group, uses them to cool drinks in its pubs. In Europe and in India, Unilever is testing hydrocarbons in its freezer cabinets. But there is a snag. Hydrocarbons are flammable. Although the small amount of hydrocarbon in a fridge is not seen as a safety risk in Europe, it is deemed unacceptable in the US,

where liability laws are more stringent. And chemical companies are emphasising the safety risks of relying more on hydrocarbons because they want to dissuade European governments from phasing out HFCs.

Indeed, the chemicals industry - through organisations such as the Alliance for Responsible Atmospheric Policy, and the European Partnership for Energy and the Environment - is lobbying hard to persuade governments that HFCs are the most technically feasible, safe, cost-effective and environmentally acceptable alternatives now available. The industry argues that efforts to reduce leakages from refrigerators mean that HFC emissions are going to fall over the next decade. It says that non-HFC refrigerants are less energy efficient and so could end up causing more global warming. A move away from HFCs would also cost billions and damage industry, unless it was also enforced in other countries that might otherwise turn to other producers. Moreover, uncertainty about which refrigerants are legal would increase industry's reliance on ozone-depleting chemicals, rather than encourage sceptical users to risk switching to hydrocarbons or ammonia.

These arguments are hotly contested by proponents of alternative technologies. "There is a lot of scaremongering from chemical companies, because they have invested billions in plants round the world and want to recuperate it," says Loretta Powell, general manager of Calor Gas Refrigeration. The war of words over HFCs is likely to continue. In spite of the statements by the Danish and UK governments, the chemical industry still has an expanding market for its HFC products. But as the Coca-Cola announcement has shown, companies now know alternatives are needed. As time and money goes into finding the alternatives, the performance of "green" refrigerants is sure to improve.

UK-CLIMATE LEVY FUNDS TO GO TO RENEWABLE ENERGY USE Financial Times Jul 26, 2000 Internet: http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000726000044&query =%22climate+change%22&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

Ministers are planning to divert more than half of a fund set up to help small and medium-sized businesses cope with the climate change levy into researching renewable energy, according to a leak from the Department of Trade and Industry. The decision, which slipped out during discussions between DTI officials and business representatives on a climate change working group, has prompted protests from the Confederation of British Industry and construction sector groups.

Business leaders think that as little as Pounds 27m of the proposed Pounds 50m energy efficiency fund will be used to help small and medium-sized businesses cut their energy use and so pay less tax. Final decisions were not included in last week's comprehensive spending review. But DTI officials say the balance will be used to promote renewable energy sources. Promoting renewables was part of the remit for the fund when Gordon Brown announced the levy in the 1999 Budget. But business people thought most of the money would go towards helping SMEs, which are ineligible for the special ccl discounts available to big energy users. The levy, intended to help Britain meet its international air pollution targets, comes into force in April. Ever Stephen Byers, the political fireman, has been damping down the squeals of concern from industry at the prospect of new workers' rights.

At Labour's national policy forum earlier this month, the trade and industry secretary was forced to concede to trade union demands that he revisit the issue of consultation and information for workers. Britain has been blocking a European Union directive on a statutory right to information and consultation on mergers, closures, sell-offs and cutbacks. But under pressure from unions Mr Byers agreed to look again at the issue to see whether there was a British alternative to the directive.

Unions regarded this as a significant concession but those close to Mr Byers are not so sure. "First we have to consult on this," said one, "and these consultations can be a lengthy business." Mr Byers is making it clear that he will want to hear from everyone with a view on the subject. The most that unions can now hope for is a manifesto proposal, but if the election falls in May that may not allow enough time for the detailed consultation and scrutiny he would have in mind.

EPISCOPALIANS TAKE STAND ON ENERGY New York Times July 28, 2000

DENVER (AP) -- When people ask why the Episcopal Church promotes renewable energy, the Rev. Sally Bingham mentions Noah. She refers to his saving the animals from the flood as the first ``endangered species act.'' Bingham, head of the environmental ministry at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, said, ``The covenant between God and Noah was for generations to come and that covenant was for every living thing, not just humans.'' The Bible calls people to be good stewards of the Earth, she said, explaining the basis for a growing movement linking faith and environmentalism.

Two years ago, Bingham founded Episcopal Power and Light, a California-based group that works with churches that want to switch to green power: wind, solar or geothermal energy. Many churches, including Grace Cathedral, have contracted with Vermont- based Green Mountain Energy, generally in markets where the utility industry has been deregulated.

The California Council of Churches plans to start California Interfaith Power and Light in September. The organization would be patterned after the Episcopal group. Churches in other states, including New Jersey and Maine, have used Episcopal Power and Light as a model to cut the use of fossil fuels. The carbon dioxide created by burning coal and oil is blamed for global warming and other environmental problems.

Bingham said she believes it's up to churches to set an example. The Episcopal Church passed a resolution in 1997 urging members to conserve energy. And the church brokered a deal to run its 10-day national convention in Denver earlier this month on renewable energy. The convention, which drew about 15,000 people, is believed to be the first such national gathering to go all green.

``It allowed us to put our faith into action,'' Bingham said. She and Steve MacAusland of Boston, head of the Committee on Faith and the Environment for the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts, negotiated with Public Service Co. of Colorado to use wind power generated by the utility's wind farm in the northern part of the state. The electricity to the convention center flowed from the power grid, a network of power producers and consumers. So, the wind power bought by the Episcopal Church may have actually helped homes throughout the Denver area keep cool.

``Basically, they're sponsoring our ability to provide wind power,'' Public Service spokeswoman Jessica Anderson said. Public Service charges an extra $2.50 for a block of 100 kilowatt hours of wind power because it costs more than conventional energy to produce. Anderson said a household uses an average of 600 kilowatt hours a month. The Episcopal Church paid about $11,000 more for the renewable energy. But Bingham said it amounted to only about 10 cents extra a day per person.

Episcopal Power and Light has provided a blueprint for other conventions, said Scott Ingvoldstad, spokesman for the Colorado branch of the conservation group Environmental Defense, formerly known as the Environmental Defense Fund. The group has been important in raising awareness about renewable energy, said Suzie Quinn, spokeswoman for Green Mountain Energy. ``The church affiliations are a wonderful network for us,'' she said. ``Their platform for environmental stewardship is a powerful connection for us.''

Green Mountain does not produce electricity, but sells power from renewable energy sources to about 100,000 customers in California, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. As more churches and their members sign up, the demand for clean energy will grow and more wind and solar plants will be built, Quinn said. The church is the perfect institution to lead the way, Bingham said.

``If the Senate is not going to pass the Kyoto protocol, or if the government has difficulties with it,'' she said, referring to a greenhouse-gas reduction plan agreed to by many nations at a 1997 meeting in Kyoto, Japan, ``we believe the church can get this done.'' ``Some people think the environment is a political issue the church shouldn't be involved with,'' Bingham said. But, she said, ``People of faith have a responsibility to keep air and water clean.'' ``Jesus was an active person,'' Bingham said. ``Praying about clean water and air is fine. But taking action to make sure the air and water are clean, that's where we put our faith into action.''

See also- San Francisco Chronicle: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/07/17/MN66592.DTL

AUSTRALIAN GREEN ELECTRICITY MARKET TO START 2001 Reuters July 28, 2000 Internet: http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=7632

MELBOURNE - Fifteen Australian power generators and retailers had signed-on to an internet-based market to trade the green value of renewable electricity generation, The Marketplace Co Ltd (M-co) said yesterday. The project coincides with the introduction of a range of government measures to boost use of environmentally- friendly energy to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.

"To meet the renewable energy contracting requirements of power companies the Green Energy Market (GEM) will deliver the world's first industry-governed green e-marketplace by early next year," M-co director Ken Chapman said in a statement. Legislation is already before Federal Parliament for power retailers to source an extra two percent of their electricity from renewables by 2010. The target equates to an extra 9,500 gigawatt hours of renewable generation, phased in from next year.

Power retailers are also already offering customers green energy purchase programmes, with moves to set up a national accreditation programme for green energy. Chapman said the GEM allowed market participants to trade the green energy rights separately to the physical power which would be sold as normal through the National Electricity Market. It said the market would help encourage more investment in renewable energy. "New investors will be able to work out what they will get for their physical electricity and then they will be able to sell their rights into this market and get another revenue stream that will enable their projects to get up," he told Reuters.

A system of renewable energy certificates had already been proposed as part of the Federal Government renewables target. Chapman said the price of the green rights would be capped by the A$40 per megawatt hour penalty that the Federal Government proposed for retailers who did not meet their renewables quota. The 15 foundation companies have committed financial support to the project, budgeted at A$768,000, will guide its development until it is fully established and open to all industry members.

Already participating are the Australian Gas Light Co , Origin Energy , Optima Energy, a unit of TXU Corp , Scottish Power unit Powercor, Pacific Hydro and Primergy as well as state-owned companies Aurora Energy, CS Energy, ENERGEX Retail, Ergon Energy, Hydro Tasmania, Macquarie Generation Pacific Power, Snowy Hydro Trading Pty Ltd and Stanwell Corp. M-Co, which operates the New Zealand wholesale electricity market, has been working with the Australia electricity industry to development the project. It is owned by RMB Australia Holdings, a unit of FirstRand International Ltd .

SOLAR CAR SETS DISTANCE RECORD MSNBC 31 July Internet: http://www.msnbc.com/news/432383.asp TORONTO, July 31 - Canadian college students have set a world record for the longest distance traveled in a solar-powered car, using an amount of electricity equivalent to running a toaster. Traveling at an average speed of 50 mph while using only 1,000 watts of power, the students logged 4,377 miles in their cross- Canada drive, nearly double the previous record set by an Australian team.

"THERE WAS the odd little snag here and there as certain parts came unglued but they weren't too critical. We just touched them up and we were off again," said team leader James Keirstead of the month-long journey, which began in Halifax on July 1 and ended Saturday in Vancouver. Besides the fear that their home-made vehicle might come apart, the other pitfall was some rain they encountered in the Rocky Mountains, said Keirstead. "We set out just to prove that it could be done," he said. The students are from Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, and their car, called Radiance, traps sunlight in solar cells, which produces electricity to run the motor. Excess energy is stored in a battery pack which powers the car on cloudy days.

Resembling a spaceship, the black car has a thin oblong body with rectangular solar cells. The cabin space is large enough for one driver, who must lie flat because of the aerodynamic design. The team hoped the tour would educate the public about viable energy alternatives. To demonstrate this, Keirstead said the solar car needed only $1.50 worth of electricity to travel from Halifax to Toronto. In contrast, the minivan transporting team members and their equipment guzzled $405 worth of gasoline. Built from super- lightweight materials, the vehicle is capable of speeds of up to 43 miles an hour while using only 1,000 watts of power. With a top speed of over 78 miles per hour it can maintain highway speeds similar to gas-powered vehicles. "People see the car and its strange shape," Keirstead added, "and a lot of people get inspired by it when they hear how fast it can actually go."

AS CLIMATE WARMS, GREENLAND'S ICE THINS Christian Science Monitor July 25, 2000 Internet: http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2000/07/25/fp2s1-csm.shtml

To study the history and future of heat, look at ice. That's the theory behind the latest evidence pointing toward the likelihood of global climate change. And what these studies are showing is that massive ice packs near the North and South Poles are diminishing in size. Using precise aerial mapping, NASA scientists have found that Greenland's ice cap is "rapidly thinning" - at a rate of more than three feet a year in some places.

"A conservative estimate, based on our data, indicates a net loss of approximately 51 cubic kilometers [11 cubic miles] of ice per year from the entire ice sheet," says William Krabill, NASA project scientist and lead author of a report published in the current issue of the journal Science. "When we go back after five years and see 10 meters of glacier gone, there is something happening."

Some of this loss is in the form of fresh water as the ice melts into the North Atlantic. The melting also hastens the breaking off of icebergs - a process called "calving." The result is a small but perceptible addition to a general rise in the sea level observed over the past century. "This amount of sea-level rise does not threaten coastal regions," says Mr. Krabill, "but these results provide evidence that the margins of the ice sheet are in a process of change." This latest data coincides with other information gathered by submarines, whose sonar equipment shows that the thickness of the Arctic sea ice has declined in recent years.

At 840,000 square miles, Greenland is the world's largest island. Eighty-five percent of it is covered with ice that is up to two

miles thick. Over a seven-year period, NASA used airborne laser altimeters and precision global positioning satellite receivers to detect changes in elevation there. Next year, NASA will launch a special satellite to survey major ice sheets around the world.

Drilling deep core samples of ice in Antarctica gives clues to the possibility of global warming as well. One test showed that the amount of greenhouse gases trapped in the ice some 150 years ago (principally carbon dioxide) was approximately 25 percent less than in ice samples taken since the beginning of the industrial revolution. It may or may not be related to climate change, but earlier this year two of the largest icebergs on record broke away from Antarctica.

Whether or not global warming exists remains a contentious issue - particularly the degree to which this is part of a natural cycle or caused by industrial pollution and other things linked to development in the modern era. "The earth's atmosphere is not warming and fears about human- induced storms, sea-level rise, and other disasters are misplaced," Fred Singer, professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, told a Senate hearing last week.

A long-term trend? Dr. Singer is particularly critical of the computer models used to predict the future of climate based upon what some feel is sketchy historical data. He and other skeptics note that data taken from satellites and balloons show no warming of the atmosphere, and they attribute surface temperature increases to such short-term weather phenomena as El Ni ño. Still, most climatologists agree that average temperatures have been rising in recent years. For example, this spring was the warmest on record. The 1990s were the hottest decade ever recorded, and each year of that decade is among the hottest 15 years since temperatures first were recorded in 1880.

Earlier this year, a group of scientists organized by the National Research Council, which is affiliated with the National Academy of Sciences, reported that the warming of the earth's surface is "undoubtedly real," with temperatures in the past two decades rising "at a rate substantially greater than average for the past 100 years."

Greenhouse gases Whether or not this is due to global warming caused by human development, a growing number of companies whose activities are tied to greenhouse gases thought to cause climate change are taking voluntary steps to reduce such emissions. The Global Climate Coalition, an organization of business trade associations in Washington, reports that "electric utilities have reduced greenhouse-gas emissions by 174 million tons through efficiency and process improvements." The steel and concrete industries have reduced energy consumption by 45 percent and 30 percent respectively, according to the coalition, which opposes international agreements directed at global warming while advocating voluntary measures.

ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/greenland_thaw000720.html

Washington Post: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15559-2000Jul20.html

WATERS NEAR EQUATOR SHOW 'ALARMING' WARMING TREND Washington Post July 29, 2000 Internet: http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63932-2000Jul28.html

The surface of the ocean in the tropical Northern Hemisphere has become dramatically warmer in recent years, increasing at a rate of about 1 degree Fahrenheit per decade since 1984, according to an analysis announced yesterday. "That's alarming," said oceanographer Alan E. Strong of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "It's about the amount our planet has been seeing globally over the past century," he said, and has contributed to the stress and bleaching seen in many coral reefs worldwide during the past 10 years. Strong and colleagues analyzed sea surface temperature data taken by NOAA's polar- orbiting satellites from 1984 to 1996, with the exception of 1991- 92, when airborne emissions from the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines interfered with recordings.

On average, temperatures rose about 0.1 degree F per year in the waters nearest the equator, with a maximum at 5 degrees in the north latitude--a region of the Earth that contains a large amount of coral, the scientists found. That warming rate is far higher than increases measured on adjacent land surfaces. The warming trend occurred over roughly the distance from Ecuador to southern Mexico, extending around the Earth north of the equator. There is no immediate explanation for it. "We're looking for things like global warming," Strong said. But the increase in average global temperature during the entire 20th century is about 1.1 degrees F. And it is by no means clear how an increase of less than 1 percent per year in atmospheric greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide could possibly cause enough extra warming to raise sea surface temperatures by 0.1 degree per year.

"Most likely, it reflects a combination of several different factors" in a complex relationship that is not yet understood, said Gregory Withee, NOAA assistant administrator for satellite and information services. The warming might be linked somehow to the climate phenomenon known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, a long-term fluctuation in those ocean waters, Strong speculated. "Or it might be tied to some north-south variation we haven't discovered yet." Compounding the uncertainty is the observation that, during the study period, the centers of many major ocean basins cooled. Only the water on the margins warmed. There is no consensus explanation for this phenomenon.

Two trends found in the satellite record, however, were generally expected by climate scientists: a slight overall cooling in the Southern Hemisphere (which produces far less greenhouse gas emissions than the population-dense Northern Hemisphere), and a clear warming pattern in northern oceans at latitudes above 50 degrees north. Unfortunately, oceanographers have no exactly comparable sea surface record for the period before 1984 to provide a benchmark for the new analysis. The satellites that produced the temperature record were launched in the early 1980s and did not start taking reliable data until 1984. They are still in service, but Armstrong's group did not include readings from 1997 and 1998 because the unusually intense El Nino and La Nina during that period would have skewed the average.

Some veteran climate scientists who did not participate in the research were unsure what to make of the findings. For example, James J. O'Brien of the meteorology department at Florida State University noted that traditionally "the biggest variation in sea surface temperatures tend to be in the tropical oceans," but he added that a 1-degree warming would be "quite significant." Nonetheless, O'Brien said, "this is climate, and short pieces of the climate record can mislead you." A dozen years is "too short a period" to provide definitive evidence of a trend, he said. Damage to coral is often regarded as a portent of impending threats to other ecosystems, especially the fish that live nearby. A recent study conducted by the State Department concluded that high temperatures in 1998 had prompted the largest die-off of coral in modern times, and that similar events were "likely a consequence of a steadily rising baseline of marine temperatures." If the apparent trend persists "another 10 or 15 years, a lot of ree fs are going to be in trouble," Strong said.

See also- Chicago Sun Times: http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/trop30.html

NEW GREENHOUSE GAS IDENTIFIED, POTENT AND RARE (BUT EXPANDING) New York Times July 28, 2000 Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/072800sci-environ-climate.ht ml

Scientists have found rising concentrations of a newly identified gas in the air that traps heat more effectively than all other known greenhouse gases, the dozens of compounds released by industry and the burning of fuels that act like a greenhouse roof and may be warming the global climate. The synthetic gas is extremely rare, so far reaching concentrations just over one-tenth of one part per trillion of air, according to a paper published today in the journal Science. But it still poses potential problems, the paper's authors say, because concentrations of the gas are rising quickly, the gas probably takes more than 1,000 years to break down and its source -- although certainly from human activity -- is a mystery.

"So far, there is far too small a quantity to be of concern," said William T. Sturges, an atmospheric chemist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and the study's principal author. "But I wouldn't want to see it enormously increased." The study provides the latest evidence of the global reach of pollution and the sometimes unintended consequences of industrial activity, said many chemists familiar with the report. Advance copies of the paper circulated this week by e-mail. Some chemists said yesterday that it was possible that the gas was being used secretly in military equipment. A similar gas, sulfur hexafluoride, or SF6 , is on lists of chemicals used in electronics, weapons and for other military purposes. But they added that the new gas might also be used secretly by some industry or it could simply be an unintentional byproduct of some manufacturing process somewhere in the world. The gas could come from any number of industrialized countries.

The gas was found in samples taken by instrument-laden balloons 21 miles up in the stratosphere and in air trapped under layers of Antarctic snow. Its name, trifluoromethyl sulfur pentafluoride, is enough of a tongue twister that chemists prefer to talk about it using its chemical formula, SF5 CF3 . Its discoverers found no evidence of the gas in the air before the 1950's, with only a scattering of molecules appearing in the 1960's and then a steady rise, with concentrations now rising about 6 percent a year. Altogether, the scientists calculated, about 4,000 tons have been released so far, with an additional 270 tons emitted each year. That still has resulted in an overall concentration of about 0.12 parts per trillion in air, making the gas exceedingly rare, Dr. Sturges said.

But because SF5 CF3 is such a potent, and nearly permanent, heat- trapping gas, he and his colleagues said, they hoped the finding would serve as a call to industry and governments to find its source. Molecule for molecule, it is 18,000 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide, the most familiar greenhouse gas, Dr. Sturges said. And, like the durable chlorofluorocarbon chemicals, or CFC's, that can erode earth's protective ozone layer, the gas is extremely long-lived, with molecules probably persisting for 1,000 years or more once they are lofted in the air, the study said.

The global warming potential of a greenhouse gas is a measurement devised by scientists to describe the relative contributions of different gases to the predicted warming of the climate. It is the ratio of the amount of heat trapped by a certain quantity of the gas to the heat trapped by an equivalent quantity of carbon dioxide over 100 years. If the gas traps 10 times as much heat as carbon dioxide, then the global warming potential for that gas is 10.

Scientists can precisely measure the ability of a gas to trap infrared energy -- heat in the laboratory. Yesterday, several chemists who work with similar compounds said that they were astonished to learn that thousands of tons of the chemical had infiltrated the atmosphere. "I nearly fell off my chair," said Gary A. Gard, a chemistry professor at Portland State University in Oregon, who is an expert in the properties of compounds containing fluorine, a versatile element that has helped scientists produce the atom bomb, prevent tooth decay and make Teflon coatings and refrigerants. Dr. Gard recalled how SF5 CF3 had first been synthesized more than 40 years ago by one of his mentors, George H. Cady, at the University of Washington, but had never found much use beyond pure research.

"To the best of my knowledge, no one is using it on an industrial scale," Dr. Gard said. "It's the kind of research chemical where you'd buy 100 grams or 50 grams, but you wouldn't buy a ton of this stuff." Other chemists said that SF5 CF3 was briefly employed about 30 years ago as a chemical tag to track the flow of pollution from smokestacks. The advantages were that it was inert and stood out clearly in samples taken downwind, said Edward A. Tyczkowski, a fluorine chemist in Newport, Tenn. who once manufactured about 100 pounds of the material for government scientists. But he said only a few pounds were used in such tests and he knew of no large-scale production. Dr. Gard agreed with a theory proposed by Dr. Sturges that the traces of the chemical in the air could be some unnoticed byproduct of industrial processes using fluorine. He also agreed that a search should be made for the source.

F. Sherwood Rowland, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine, who shared a Nobel Prize in 1995 for discovering the link between CFC's and the ozone layer, noted that other greenhouse gases containing fluorine were unintended industrial byproducts. Dr. Rowland said the new finding was important because it underscored the need to give serious consideration to even the atmosphere's most minor constituents. In that sense, he said, the new gas is similar to CFC's, which prompted an international treaty to protect the ozone layer but have never existed in concentrations higher than 550 parts per trillion. Dr. Gard said the newly discovered atmospheric gas also served as a reminder that the atmosphere is not some boundless expanse. "Not too long ago, people thought we can dump anything we want in the ocean because it's so vast," he said. "It's the same thing with the atmosphere. It's just been seen as this huge sink. Now we see it's not an infinite reservoir. People should realize that and start taking better care of it."

See also-- BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_854000/854940.stm

CARBON DIOXIDE MAKES LEAVES LESS HEALTHFUL Seattle Times July 18, 2000 Internet: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/health-science/html98/altleav18m_20000 718.html

PELLSTON, Mich. - In a northern Michigan forest clearing, carbon dioxide flows through a tangle of tubes into 42 chambers made of PVC pipe and plastic wrap. Sensors sniff the chambers every five minutes, sending air samples to separate tanks that are analyzed every half-hour. A computer ensures that the carbon dioxide inside the chambers is twice that found outside. But the bugs in this sophisticated experiment that mimics global industrial pollution are, well, the bugs. "We go on grasshopper patrol and if they're around, we remove them from the gene pool," said David Karowe, a researcher at the University of Michigan's Biological Station. "We've hated them the last three years because they get in the chamber and eat our plants." But they don't get much of a meal. What Karowe and other researchers are finding is that while plants grow faster in the carbon-dioxide-rich air that cars, power plants and factories may produce in coming decades, the nutritional value of their leaves drops dramatically. It is an important observation as politicians, scientists, environmentalists and industries wrestle with global climate change from so-called greenhouse gases.

To what degree such industrial emissions cause the Earth to warm and disrupt its weather is under intense debate. But there is little question that concentrations of one of those emissions - carbon dioxide - have increased since the dawn of the industrial revolution in 1750. A monitor in Hawaii has measured a more than 19 percent increase since 1959, and some scientists project a doubling from pre-industrial levels in 75 years. There is no question that carbon dioxide spurs plant growth. "In a sense, it's a fertilizer," said Chip Knappenberger, a climatologist with New Hope Environmental Services, which advises industry groups on climate change issues. "These guys who grow stuff for a living in greenhouses like to boost their carbon dioxide." But Karowe has found that caterpillars eating plants grown in his chambers munch about 50 percent more food and grow 15 percent more slowly than those fed a regular diet. "It's like we'd have to eat two lunches and another half a dinner, but we wouldn't grow as much," s aid Karowe, a biology professor at Western Michigan University.

What sounds like a dieter's dream could be a nutritionist's nightmare. This year Karowe is looking at how grasses that provide basic foods - like wheat, corn, sorghum and oats - could be affected by increased carbon dioxide. "Agriculture is largely the science of making grasses work for us," he said. "We eat their seeds." But the direct effect on the food we eat is unclear. Sylvan Wittwer, retired director of Michigan State University's Agricultural Research Station, credits increasing carbon dioxide with boosting crop and forest production between 10 percent and 12 percent. It also increases nutritional value, he said. Wittwer, who has written a book on the subject, bristles when the gas is called a pollutant.

"The benefits are unmistakable," he said. And Karowe said that while leaves may be less nutritious, plants may devote their energy to keeping their seeds - the stuff people eat - healthy for reproduction. There are also uncertain implications for chain reactions throughout complex ecosystems. Caterpillars chewing food grown in air high in carbon dioxide damage more leaves and excrete more waste. Both prompt chemical signals that parasitic wasps home in on. That means more dead caterpillars. It also means that new wasps that hatch from eggs laid in the caterpillars do poorly on their nutrient-starved hosts. And the caterpillars that do survive develop more slowly, perhaps producing butterflies long after plants that need them for pollination have blossomed. What else might happen is difficult to say as the impact pulses through upper levels of food webs and even into aquatic ecosystems.

Nancy Tuchman, another researcher at the Pellston station and a biology professor at Loyola University in Chicago, grinds up aspen leaves grown in chambers similar to Karowe's. She feeds them to micro-organisms that typically eat dead leaves in streams. Those in turn are fed to the larvae of mosquitoes and black flies gathered from nearby streams. Both the micro-organisms and the larvae grow much more slowly than those eating more typical fare, she said. Some may view mosquitoes that grow 60 percent more slowly as a huge benefit. But how that affects other organisms - say the trout that eat mosquitoes - is difficult to predict. Tuchman notes that her experiments are but a tiny piece of the vast, unknown consequences of a worldwide increase in carbon dioxide. "If all the plants are altered on a global level, then it's certainly going to affect all the organisms on Earth," she said. "No one is going to escape."

FIELD TRIALS ON GAS EMISSIONS Financial Times July 26 2000 Internet: http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT38XN895BC&liv e=true&useoverridetemplate=IXLZHNNP94C

Scientists have developed a new way of tackling global warming - by feeding cattle a daily dose of bacteria to stop them belching out methane as they graze. Cows - and, to a lesser extent, sheep - are responsible for nearly a quarter of global emissions of methane, a greenhouse gas. Contrary to the popular image of flatulent cows, most of the methane produced is released from their mouths. Scientists had tried to tackle the problem by changing their diet. Now researchers at Scotland's Rowett Research Institute have found a bacterium that breaks down the methane into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The institute does not expect consumers to quibble about the additives, which are much like the bacteria-enriched yoghurts people eat to improve their digestion.

Dr Jamie Newbold, who is leading the £267,000 ($406,000) project, is optimistic that the bacterium could cut cows' methane production by 20 per cent and the UK's methane emissions by 6 per cent. He described it as a relatively painless contribution to the complex task of curbing greenhouse gases. "Ruminants are part of the problem we can actually deal with," he said.

Persuading the hard-pressed farming industry to adopt the feed supplement could be difficult. But the researchers hope that the farmers will have an economic incentive as it will improve the animals' digestion, increasing yields of meat and milk. Further trials with sheep will take place this summer. If successful, this will lead to trials with cattle.

ALGAE COMES TO THE AID OF COAL-FIRED PLANTS CNN July 31, 2000 Internet: http://europe.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/07/31/algae.carbon.enn/index.html

In an effort to mimic the ways of nature, a team of scientists at Ohio University is working on technology that uses algae, sunlight and the natural process of photosynthesis to absorb carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal. The result: reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon dioxide has been identified as the biggest single contributor to global climate change. The Ohio University researchers, whose work is supported by a $1.07 million U.S. Department of Energy grant, estimate their method could lower emissions from an average-sized power plant by 20 percent. "The concept is to use something in nature to control carbon dioxide emissions," said David Bayless, assistant professor of mechanical engineering and lead researcher on the project. "Everyone is trying to do something chemically driven. We are trying to look at a way to augment nature's carbon recycling processes. In the long term, that is the way we really ought to look at things.""This technology could be applied to any fuel-burning power plants," he added.

Bayless' scheme works like this: After coal is burned, carbon dioxide headed for the smokestacks is forced through tubes of running water. The combination of carbon dioxide and water creates bubbly bicarbonates, ions that form when carbon dioxide is made soluble in water. The fizzy water is then forced through a bioreactor that contains a series of screens covered with living algae. The screens are exposed to sunlight filtered by a special system of solar panels, satellite dishes and fiber optic cables. Scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a partner in the project, developed the filtering system, which is also designed to redirect infrared light for use in photovoltaics.

The sunlight aids the algae in photosynthesis, the process by plants create food necessary for growth." The algae basically drink the bicarbonates," Bayless said. "They get carbon through this system much quicker than trying to get it out of the air." Oxygen is the other "very nice byproduct" of this process," he added. After the algae matures, it falls to the bottom of the bioreactor, where it can be harvested for use in energy or agriculture. For instance, the algae can be used as fuel for biomass incinerators. The Department of Energy also has developed a method to collect hydrogen from vats of fermenting plant organisms such as algae, according to Bayless. The hydrogen can then used as an energy source for fuel cells. "If (the mature algae) can't be used as fuel or a hydrogen source," he said, "it can be used as a fertilizer or soil stabilizer." An average-size power plant could produce as many as 200,000 tons of algae per year using this technology.

The researchers have developed a small-scale prototype in which they have grown about two pounds of algae in a direct stream of carbon dioxide exhaust under fluorescent lights. The DOE grant money will help them add the bioreactor and the sunlight systems. Bayless expects the technology could be implemented in about five years. He estimates that the cost of the system, averaged over 30 years, would be $5 to $7 per ton of carbon dioxide removed from the exhaust.

CHINESE FARMERS SEE NEW DESERT ERODE THEIR WAY OF LIFE New York Times July 30, 2000 Internet: http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/asia/073000china-farmers.html

AGAN, China -- Tse Rangji fitfully tries shoveling away the waves of sand that menace her home, half engulfing it like some artifact of a lost civilization. Then she gives up in frustration. "The pasture here used to be so green and rich," said Ms. Tse, 46, waving toward a tattered landscape of anemic grasses, weeds and dirt among which dunes have erupted like a pox. "But now the grass is disappearing and the sand is coming." She and her husband and seven children have already moved into a tent for fear that their house will buckle under.

The rising sands are part of a new desert forming here on the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, a legendary stretch once known for grasses reaching as high as a horse's belly and home for centuries to ethnic Tibetan herders. The spread of wastelands on these 9,000-foot-high steppes, and across the pastures and farmed hillsides of a broad swath of northern China, is threatening to rend patterns of life that depend intimately on the land and to strand millions of herders and farmers who have no other place to go in a country with virtually no decent, unused land.

"The people around Lagan have proposed moving elsewhere," said Lu Yuanru, chief of forestry for the surrounding prefecture. "But we don't know where to put them." The desert is the combined result, scientists say, of severe overgrazing that has destroyed the thin topsoil, and a decade of hotter, drier weather, including three straight years of extreme drought.

No one knows for sure whether these climate changes are temporary or part of a human-induced global warming that many scientists in China and abroad believe has already begun. But Ms. Tse and her neighbors are watching their livelihoods erode, with some of the land damaged beyond all repair. This summer's drought has thrust a long-building land-use crisis into the public eye, and the government has stepped up countermeasures like curbs on the size of herds and restrictions on farming of steep slopes. But the destruction of semi-arid lands is still accelerating, said Song Yuqin, an environmental scientist at Beijing University.

Dr. Song described a "freckled pattern of expanding barren areas" in pastures and farmlands stretching from Qinghai Province through Inner Mongolia and areas to the north of Beijing, which this spring experienced some of its worst dust storms in decades. More than 900 square miles of land degrade into useless desert each year, he said, while much larger areas are losing their productivity. "Once the process gets started, it tends to expand exponentially," said Dr. Song. "And the people are pushed into a poverty trap from which it's hard to escape."

Dr. Song argues that misuse of the land, spurred by the rising population of people and livestock, is the overriding cause of damage in most areas and that there is no proof of a general drying of the climate. But officials and scientists in Qinghai Province say they have documented rising temperatures there since the 1970's, along with lower rainfall and stronger winds. In battered grasslands to the west of Lagan, in central Qinghai near the headwaters of the Yellow River, numerous small rivers and lakes have dried up, pastures have been laid waste by infestations of rats and sandstorms are billowing.

A majority of the Tibetan herders in Maduo and Dari Counties, among others, have been forced to become "guerrilla grazers," in the words of a Chinese newspaper report, taking their animals to invade the pastures of distant counties already heavily used by others. Ms. Tse's family has not quite reached that stage. In better times, she said, the skins and meat from their herd of 250 sheep and goats earned the family more than $1,000 a year. If they never had electricity, seldom tasted fruits or vegetables and always relied on dried dung for cooking fuel, at least they earned enough to buy the small tractor they still drive to collect drinking water from a faraway spring.

But in the last few years, with the range increasingly depleted, they have had to roam farther afield with their animals to find edible grass, and now they have to buy extra hay to sustain the animals through the winter. Their income has dropped sharply, Ms. Tse said. To the east of Lagan, near Qinghai's border with the province of Gansu, is a large mountainous zone that shows another face of environmental stress. In Minhe and neighboring counties, the steep slopes are entirely carved up into fields, wherever enormous gullies have not already made farming impossible. This year, with only one decent rainfall since the spring planting, large emergency shipments of grain have been necessary to prevent famine in the mountain villages, which are mainly populated by Hui Muslims.

But food aid has been necessary for years in these hills, say officials who have concluded that these slopes simply cannot support the resident population. "More or less every year we have to bring in relief grain," said Yang Yingzhong, head of a hillside township. "Many families are in dire straits," he said, noting that per capita income on local hillsides was previously no more than $100 a year.

Here, too, declining rainfall appears to have helped bring on the crisis. Annual precipitation in Minhe County averaged 18 inches in the period from 1956 to 1979, but averaged just 13 inches in the period from 1980 to 1999, according to the county water bureau. In these hills and also in the higher-altitude pastures to the west, the problem is not simply the annual rainfall, but its changing pattern, agricultural officials say. In recent years, longer dry spells have been punctuated by brief, concentrated bursts of rain that can wash away soil and run off without soaking into the ground.

In the valleys, where irrigation is possible, crops are fine. But up the hillsides, disaster is brewing. "For two years in a row now our crops have failed," said Bei Yueling, a 35-year-old Hui Muslim

farmer and father of three in the hilltop village of Dakutu. In the terraces Mr. Bei planted with wheat, a few spindly stalks protrude, bearing undersized grains. His potato fields are mostly barren. With relief aid, he said, his family eats bread and potatoes, though during the winter they may also slaughter one of the handful of sheep they let wander through the hills.

The crops rely on the whims of rainfall, but Mr. Bei's family and the many others crowding these slopes must rely on their own energy to get water for drinking and washing. Until the single hard rain this summer, which miraculously regenerated a mountain spring, Mr. Bei took his mule on a four-hour trip every morning to fill two containers of water in a distant valley. Now he travels one hour a day to fetch water. Mr. Bei's 65-year-old mother-in- law, Ma Lu Gaoya, said: "I've been living here for 40 years and I still can't get used to it. The shortage of water makes life so difficult."

With aid from the local government, the villagers are installing underground cisterns, to collect runoff that can be used at least to water small plots, and to wash clothes. This is part of a government strategy to help people survive while they are forced to restore the steepest slopes to grasses or forest. According to the plan, families who give up farmland will be given small subsidies of money and grain for five years. The hope is that, eventually, production of fruits and medical herbs and controlled herding can restore some income. But there is little prospect, officials here admit, for other livelihoods to support the growing hillside population.

Eventually, officials say, a share of the people must be moved elsewhere, though this will require large sums of money and a place for them to go. Illustrating the obstacles, a plan to relocate 58,000 people from hillsides not far from Dakutu provoked a global controversy when pro-Tibetan activists abroad argued that the plan would further dilute Tibetan culture and was conceived in haste. The furor caused the World Bank to withdraw from a plan to provide money for the project, which involves building an irrigation system in an arid, sparsely populated area of central Qinghai that is traditionally Tibetan. China says it will proceed with the resettlement anyway, using its own resources.

Overcrowding with no easy solution is also a challenge on Qinghai's pasturelands, mainly inhabited by Tibetans. Since the early 1980's, when the communes created under Mao Zedong were disbanded and families were given title to their own livestock, the herds have grown precipitously, causing a classic "tragedy of the commons" on the range. In Gonghe County, for example, which includes Lagan, experts say the grasslands can safely carry 3.7 million sheep. But by the end of 1998 the land was trampled and nibbled by 5.5 million sheep. Seeking to salvage the depleted pastures, the authorities are fencing off the range and giving each family its own parcel, in hopes that this will give herders a direct incentive to nurture the grass and control the size of herds.

Even if the plan works for now, a provincial grazing official said, the new range allotments cannot be subdivided again as the numerous children of today's herders come of age. So what will the next generation do? The only hope, the official said, is to develop alternatives in livestock processing or in service industries. But such industries do not exist right now, he said, and in this remote region, the economic possibilities remain unclear.

REPORT: HEAT WAVES RISE STEEPLY IN LAST 50 YEARS ABC News 26 July Internet: http://abcnews.go.com/sections/science/DailyNews/heatwave000726.html

June 26 - For all the terror that tornadoes and hurricanes bring, the real threat this summer may be the slow and steady heat wave, according to a study released today. Soaring temperatures and high humidity have killed more people in the last decade than other weather phenomenon, including destructive storms, according to National Weather Service data. One reason for the fatalities may be that prolonged periods of excessive heat have become more common.

Analyzing the temperatures from 172 U.S. weather stations over roughly the last 50 years, from 1948-1999, the study found a threefold increase in the number of heat waves across the country. A heat wave is defined as a four-day period when average temperatures are above the 85th percentile for summer temperatures in the area. That means the threshold for a heat wave in Seattle would be lower than the temperature level of a Louisiana heat wave. The study was released by two nonprofit groups, Ozone Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility. They contend the steady rise in temperatures is a result of global warming caused by human pollution.

"People who have lived Phoenix or Miami for the last 50 years know that it used to be a lot cooler," says Kert Davies, science policy director for Ozone Action, a 7-year-old group focused on global warming. "It's not their imagination." Honolulu topped the list of cities with the most frequent heat waves. Other cities with frequent heat waves included San Francisco, Lake Charles, La., Tampa, Fla. Tucson, Ariz., Atlanta and Midland, Texas.

Hot Nights and Heart Attacks Not only are heat waves becoming more frequent, so are sweltering nights, says Davies."One of the things that really impacts people's health during heat waves is that they don't get a break from the heat," he says. "They sleep in it and they wake up and face it again." The number of deaths caused by heat are higher than reported by medical examiners, says Larry Kalkstein, an independent researcher with the University of Delaware who supports the study's findings. Heart attack deaths that may be caused largely by excessive heat are labeled only as heart attacks, he says, and therefore the problem does not seem as large as it is. There were 497 recorded heat-related deaths in the United States in 1999, according to the National Weather Service, but Kalkstein estimates the number is closer to 3,000.

One common way of beating the heat is also part of the problem, says Davies. Air conditioners stress the power grid to the point of collapse, and add to the pollution that causes the greenhouse effect in the first place, he says. He suggests that fans, cold drinks and avoiding over-exertion are better ways of staying healthy in the hot summer months. "We should take a hint from countries that have long dealt with high heat," Davies says. "The siesta in South American countries is probably a good idea."

See also-- Miami Herald: http://www.herald.com/content/thu/docs/020673.htm

DROUGHT LEAVES KENYANS IN NEED OF FOOD AID CNN July 24, 2000 Internet: http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/africa/07/23/kenya.maasai.drought/index.html

LAIKIPIA, Kenya (CNN) -- A three-year-old East African drought that has already withered crops in Ethiopia has spread to neighboring Kenya. According to the World Food Program, 10 million people in Ethiopia are struggling to survive because of the drought. In Kenya, more than 3.3 million people, including more than a million school children, need food relief. "The initial target areas were four districts in northern Kenya," said Paul Benson, of the World Food Program. "Since March, we have now expanded to 19 districts." In one district, about 11,000 people -- half the population -- are on the list for food aid. The U.N.'s food transport agency, which recently delivered 20,000 metric tons of corn to Kenya's affected areas, says the international response has been slow and inadequate.

Drought kills half of Masai livestock Kenya herdsmen say the present drought is much worse than one they remember from 16 years ago. Masai herdsmen Ledukura Lourokek told CNN his homestead has become a death trap for his family. "The vegetable garden we used to depend on has gone," he said. "Even the goats -- only 30 are left." It's estimated that more than half of the livestock belonging to Masai families have died. According to one survey, some Masai households no longer have any animals, which had provided food and livelihood. "Almost 500 people don't have anything. You just see them sitting in their homers," said David Koiyei, a food monitor.

There are, to be sure, some pasture areas suitable for grazing and crops, but white ranchers have fenced them off. The government has opened grazing areas for the Masai herdsmen in nearby Mt. Kenya. But the mountain is one of Africa's highest and has proved problematic for the grazing animals. Sheep and goats are doing well, but cattle are dying from the cold, herdsmen said. "Many have died," said Masiaka Sobu. "I've had to come down (from the mountain) to graze on this pasture."

DOCTORS TURN FOCUS TO GLOBAL WARMING Seattle Post-Intelligencer Monday, July 24, 2000 Internet: http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com/national/warm241.shtml

Global warming threatens water shortages and deterioration of salmon habitat in Washington, a coalition of physicians warns, and they want to see the issue front and center during the coming presidential election. Physicians for Social Responsibility, a national organization that has lobbied on issues ranging from nuclear disarmament to gun control, is turning its attention to global warming. Seattle doctors recently joined with leaders of the national organization to call on the presidential candidates to take stands on the issue.

"It is a paramount issue of this election season," Dr. Robert Musil, the organization's executive director, said last week in Seattle. The national group, based in Washington, D.C., claims 16,000 members, including health professionals and others. A Seattle member of the national group, Tim Takaro, clinical associate professor with the University of Washington, added that the cycles of drought and flooding associated with global warming could devastate the state's agricultural industry. A federal assessment of global warming, ordered by Congress and released in draft last month, predicts that by 2100 temperatures in the United States will have risen by 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Already, global temperatures have increased roughly 1 degree Fahrenheit in the past 100 years, and there are other, more telling climate signals: significant changes in rainfall patterns in North America; springs arriving one day earlier every three years; water-level cycles of the Great Lakes showing progressively earlier springs, and later winters. In March, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that global ocean temperatures are rising.

The physicians' organization launched the global warming campaign in February before the first primary election in New Hampshire. The campaign so far has been brought to 18 states, with Washington among the most recent to join the effort. Musil said that already one in 10 children in Washington suffers from asthma and one in nine adults has difficulty breathing in warmer weather.

"As temperature rises, Washingtonians may experience more cases of heat-related illness such as heat stress, heat cramps, heat exhaustions and heat strokes," he said. Tim Greeff of Washington Public Interest Research Group said more than half of Washington's tidal flats could be lost to flooding that would result from rising sea levels associated with global warming. The region, with its salt marshes and swamps, and the Seattle area are most at risk, he said. "Human health and the health of our ecosystems is at stake," Greeff said. "Congress needs to take action on this issue now."

In a separate interview, Amy Snover, a research scientist on climate change at the UW, said there are lots of misconceptions about global warming. She said that global climate change is a natural phenomenon, but that questions remain over the extent to which human activity expedites it. Snover said global climate change can threaten water supply by melting the winter snow pack, the source of the region's water supply. Nathan Mantua, another research scientist, said that warmer sea temperature due to global climate change could also affect the habitat of salmon and trout that live in cold water. Higher stream temperature could impede the salmon's journey to their natal streams for spawning.

ARCTIC SHORTCUT WORRIES CANADIANS New York Times (excerpt) July 29, 2000 Internet: http://www10.nytimes.com/library/national/science/072900sci-environ-canada.h tml

TUKTOYAKTUK, Northwest Territories -- In this Arctic village, beachfront real estate means a summer view of polar sea ice glinting a few miles offshore. But last summer, Inuvialuit natives here on the northern edge of Canada had front-row seats for unusual open-water traffic -- a Chinese research vessel examining ice conditions, a Russian boat towing a huge drydock from Siberia and an American cruise ship navigating the once forbidden Northwest Passage.

For four centuries, explorers and shipping executives have dreamed of sending ships from Europe to Asia across the top of North America. The quest for an Arctic shortcut consumed hundreds of lives, becoming a romantic obsession in Victorian times. Even though successful passages were finally made in the 20th century, the route was written off as impractical because its labyrinthine channels seemed to be perpetually frozen.

Now, as global temperatures rise, a Northwest Passage no longer seems like an adventurer's pipe dream. But for Canadians worried about inexperienced freighter captains' probing Arctic waters, the dream could become a nightmare if the fragile environment becomes the Panama Canal of the North.

"If there is an accident, who is going to wear the damage?" Col. Pierre Leblanc warned this week as he stepped down as commander of Canada's northern military forces in Yellowknife. "It's going to be the Canadian islands. If the freighter is registered in the Bahamas, there will be $34 in the bank for cleanup." A decade after the Exxon Valdez spilled 10.5 million gallons of crude oil off the Alaska coast, the environmental effects remain visible, Colonel Leblanc added.

While scientists argue about the causes of global warming, they generally agree that world temperatures are rising. In a flurry of conferences and articles this summer, scientists also are saying that warming is most visible in the extreme polar latitudes.

In this village of caribou hunters, where melting permafrost is causing some houses to tilt, scientists who are using satellite and submarine data are confirming what native elders have been saying all along. According to NASA analyses of satellite photographs, the late summer expanse of open waters of the Beaufort Sea roughly tripled from 1996 to 1998, to 375,000 square miles.

In the eastern Arctic, as warmer waters push farther north, the ice sheet that covers most of Greenland is losing 1.25 trillion gallons of fresh water a year, enough to sustain all 120 million households in the United States for almost five months, according to a new article in Science magazine.

Over all, the late summer icecap of the North Pole has shrunk 6 percent over the last 20 years, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Of greatest concern, though, is that the average thickness of the Arctic icecap has thinned 42 percent since the 1950's, according to sonar measurements by American and British submarines. If those trends continue, some scientists predict, by the second half of the century, the polar icecap, which covers 80 percent of the Arctic Ocean at its September minimum, could vanish every summer.

"What people see now is not what they saw centuries ago," said Ann Savours, author of "The Search for the North West Passage," (St. Martin's Press 1999), one of several recent books on the passage. "The ice has deteriorated, or improved, depending on how you look at it." The opening of the Arctic to commercial navigation could bring the biggest change in American shipping routes since the Panama Canal opened in 1914. Ships taking cargo from Rotterdam to Yokohama could cut 5,000 miles, almost cutting travel time in half from the Panama route.

On the far side of the Arctic from here, shipping companies are finalizing plans to send freighters with reinforced hulls steaming in summer months through the Northeast Passage, a route above Russia that similarly nearly halves the time and distance compared to the Suez Canal route between Hamburg and Yokohama. With fewer islands, fewer icebergs and more open water, the Northeast Passage is considered safer than Canada's treacherous maze of straits and channels.

For now, high insurance costs, the iceberg threat, the need for icebreakers and expensive reinforced hulls and an extremely short open-water season keep all but the most prepared captains from attempting the Northwest Passage. But Canadians fear a confluence of events that would place enormous pressure on the passage, including 10 additional years of global warming and an accident that could block the Panama Canal, which 14,000 ships a year use.

"If the canal closes for whatever reason, there will be a lot of pressure to go up north," Colonel Leblanc said. Although the numbers are small, he said, the number of cruise ships venturing into the Canadian Arctic has steadily increased, from one in 1990 to 15 last summer. The cruise ships, he said, generally follow the Polar Code, a book of Canadian regulations for shipping north of the 60th Parallel -- double hulls, cold-weather emergency gear, filing of routes and captains and crews trained in Arctic navigation.

DROUGHT IN WEST PUTS FISHERIES IN HOT WATER CNN August 1, 2000 Internet: http://europe.cnn.com/2000/NATURE/08/01/drought.trout.enn/

The heat is on. Wild fish and avid anglers are beginning to feel the effects of this summer's drought in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. "Lack of water is always a problem for fish," said Kathy Buchner, director of the Wyoming Council of Trout Unlimited. "We are concerned that the drought might add to the problems endangered fish currently face such as habitat degradation and invasive species." Two counties in Wyoming and three in Idaho have declared drought emergencies. About half of Montana's major river stretches are rated moderately to extremely dry.

"Fish are undoubtedly beginning to feel the stress caused by low flows, higher water temperatures and competition for space and food," said Larry Peterman, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks fisheries division administrator. "Low water conditions in spring and fall can cause spawning failures and increased predation on young fish can impact adult trout numbers in future years. If conditions worsen, we will most likely lose fish to stress from the increased water temperature and decreased oxygen available." Peterman estimates that a wild trout population seriously impacted by drought may take three years or more to recover. All species, native and resident, will be affected in the state of Idaho, said Tom Rogers, fisheries hatchery supervisor for the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

"As temperatures rise, there are more algae blooms due to nutrient concentration, which decreases the amount of oxygen available in the water," he explained. Especially sensitive to warmer conditions are cold-water species such as rainbow trout and the threatened bull trout. In response to the drought, Rogers said his department is likely to cut back on stocking areas that have lethal water temperatures. If the situation worsens, the department may liberalize fishing limits in areas where the fish are not likely to survive. For species at risk such as the bull trout, which is listed as a threatened species, wildlife officials may salvage surviving fish and relocate them.

"The fish are getting really hammered," said Jerry Eder, the manager of Silver Creek Outfitters in Ketchum, Idaho. "They are less aggressive because they are not eating as much." Warm water speeds up metabolism, yet more effort is required for the fism to find food, he explained. Their energy is depleted even when they are caught by an angler. "Fishing is a major part of this economy," Eder noted. "The last few seasons we have seen more pressure on the resources. August is the hottest month of the year and there is talk of closing certain fisheries. I would encourage people to fish in the early morning and early evening."

In Montana, fisheries biologists have asked anglers to reduce voluntarily the amount of pressure they place on fisheries. Other recommendations they offer to minimize stress include landing fish quickly once they are hooked, keeping fish in the water as much as possible when handling them, and avoiding contact with the fish's gills. The drying of water sources for irrigation is also expected to have an impact on fisheries. "When you have competition between irrigators who need water for crops and the need for water in streams for fisheries, one side is going to lose," said Dick Larsen of the Idaho Department of Water Resources.

Larsen said drought conditions could be much worse next year. "We are already draining our reservoirs to supply irrigators," he said. "If we don't get a big snow pack this winter there will be no water to refill them and we could be in serious trouble. It is time to start preying for snow in July."

ON THE WEB

US SENATORS INTRODUCE BILL TO PROMOTE CARBON SEQUESTRATION, VOLUNTARY REDUCTION On 27 July, a group of US Senators introduced legislation to promote carbon sequestration as a means of combating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and reward voluntary environmental efforts on climate change. Under the bill, the "International Carbon Sequestration Incentive Act (S.2982)," eligible U.S. companies could choose to receive an investment tax credit or access to low-interest loans and insurance options on carbon sequestration investments in other countries. Eligible projects can receive funding at a rate of US$2.50 per verified ton of carbon stored or sequestered up to 50 percent of the total project cost. The minimum length of these proejcts is 30 years and the Implementing Panel can only approve US$200 million in tax credits each year. For details see the press release from Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) at http://www.senate.gov/~brownback/000727Carbon_Bill.pdf. Other sponsors of the bill include Tom Daschle (D - SD), Mike DeWine (R - OH), Bob Kerrey (D - NE), Chuck Grassley (R - IA) and Robert Byrd (D - WV).

US DOE LAUNCHES 13 PROJECTS TO CAPTURE AND STORE GREENHOUSE GASES The innovative ideas of 13 private sector research teams for affordable ways to capture and store the gases that cause the "greenhouse effect" have been judged the best of more than 60 concepts submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The projects mark a transition in the Energy Department's carbon sequestration research program. To date, research has concentrated largely on early exploratory ventures funded primarily with federal dollars. The new projects are larger-scale partnerships with private research institutions, industries, and universities sharing a major portion of the research costs. The goal is to reduce the cost of carbon sequestration to $10 or less per net ton of carbon emissions by 2015. Present systems for capturing and storing CO2 are more expensive, averaging $100 - $300 per ton per ton of carbon captured or avoided. For more information: http://www.fe.doe.gov/techline/tl_seq_ind1.html

COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS

REWARDS FOR LIMITING GAS EMISSIONS NOT A LOT OF HOT AIR Business Day (South Africa) Jul 26, 2000 Internet: http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000726009586&query =%22global+warming%22&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

By Dave Marrs

TAKEN from the ground as diamonds and coal and exported worldwide, carbon has been a pillar of the SA economy for more than a century. It remains a vital source of foreign exchange. Now, as fears of global warming turn to co-ordinated action on an international scale, we stand to be rewarded for cutting the amount of carbon we export in gaseous form. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas pumped into the atmosphere in vast quantities by SAs numerous coal-fired power stations and by domestic cooking and heating, as well as a range of agricultural and industrial processes. Among these is the synthetic liquid fuel industry, which often boasts of the technological and foreign exchange benefits it brings the country, but is less voluble on the fact that it is also one of the biggest producers of carbon dioxide.

According to the University of Cape Towns energy and development research centre (EDRC), SA generates less than 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, but is still in the top 20 countries contributing to climate change with a per capita industrial carbon dioxide emission rate more than six times the African average, putting it close to the levels of some European countries and Japan. Now, the clean development mechanism (CDM) of the 1997 Kyoto protocol to the United Nations framework convention on climate change, scheduled for introduction next year, is set to change the way SA industry and government approach new capital projects. That means green issues, generally regarded with irritation as a drain on the bottom line by corporate SA, could become substantial positive contributors to the economic viability of projects in future.

A few years down the line it is going to be just another revenue item, says Randall Spalding-Fecher, leader of the EDRC energy and environment programme. The carbon credits purchased by developed countries investing in CDM projects could make projects viable that were not considered so in the past. First-world companies will not need as much financial return on their equity investments because they will get a carbon return that has real value in meeting emission reduction commitments.

The CDM of the Kyoto protocol is one of several flexible ways in which first-world governments and companies can reduce global emissions of carbon dioxide and the other greenhouse gases that cause global warming. Most developed countries have accepted the concept of emission quotas that will be reduced over time, although there has not yet been any agreement on enforcement and US participation remains key. The accords flexible mechanisms recognise that global emissions will be reduced more quickly and at lower cost by targeting less-developed countries using advanced technologies. The aim is to create an emissions market that places a commercial value on each ton of carbon dioxide that is mitigated due to a new project, turning a pollutant into a commodity.

Since SA has plenty of that commodity and no emission limitation obligations under the accord we stand to benefit economically by attracting investment from carbon credit-seeking multinationals. The rules governing the CDM are only likely to take form at a meeting in The Hague in November. Once they are in place government is expected to clarify its stance on issues such as how the state and industry will share the carbon credits arising from domestic joint ventures. A number of pilot projects are already underway in SA, including a Netherlands-sponsored energy efficiency improvement project at steel producer Iscor. The project is expected to result in technological and housekeeping changes that could reduce SAs carbon dioxide emissions by more than 800000 tons a year.

The Dutch government has also funded pilot projects to build energy-efficient housing in SA, as well as a hydroelectric power scheme that is currently in the pre-feasibility stage. In addition, two of the eight potential CDM projects identified by Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell worldwide are in SA. One is a joint venture with power utility Eskom SAs biggest single producer of carbon dioxide from its coal-burning power stations to provide solar-generated electricity to remote areas that are not connected to the national grid. The other relates to the Cape Power Project, which is conducting a feasibility study for a gas-fired power station using natural gas from the west coast. Shell is a leading contender for the supply contract using the proven reserves in its Kudu gas field off Namibia.

Gas is significantly more efficient than coal as a fuel for power stations, in terms of both thermal conversion and production of greenhouse gases and smoke pollution. While the experience of the UK and other developed countries has shown that converting from coal to gas-generated power has a marked effect on emissions over a relatively short period, it is not certain that such projects will fall within the CDM rules that will take shape in November. This is because projects will have to be additional green jargon for a requirement that the project would not have taken place had the CDM not been in place.

The Hague meeting could also affect Eskoms proposed pebble bed nuclear reactor at Koeberg in the Western Cape. Environmental lobby groups are pushing for the exclusion of nuclear projects from the accords flexible mechanisms, which could give backers of clean power generation technologies a significant economic advantage.

RICH COUNTRIES SHOULD TAKE MORE RESPONSIBILITY FOR REDUCING THE WORLD'S CARBON EMISSIONS Financial Times Jul 20, 2000, 730 words Internet: http://search.ft.com/search/multi/globalarchive.jsp?docId=000720000359&query =%22climate+change%22&resultsShown=20&resultsToRequest=100

by Andrew Simms

The safe island retreat of Okinawa will this year witness the annual ritual hand-wringing of the heads of state of the Group of Eight industrialised nations over the seemingly intractable poor country debt crisis. But in the future they may look back at the barrage of criticism about the slow pace of relief as a halcyon period.

Ten years from now, a beleaguered G8 may be sitting down to work out how to account for the enormous carbon debt they owe the developing world for the consequences of climate change, and how they intend to settle their arrears. This is no abstract theoretical exercise. The economic costs of global warming are rising sharply. According to Munich Re, the reinsurance group, the number of great climate-related and flood disasters quadrupled during the 1990s compared with the 1960s; resulting economic losses increased eight-fold during the same period. If that trend continued we would arrive at the absurd situation just after the middle of this century of the costs from global warming overtaking the value of gross world product.

The problem is that the damage to human life is very unevenly distributed. Poor people in poor countries suffer first and worst from extreme weather conditions linked to climate change - a fact highlighted in the Red Cross World Disasters Report 2000. Today, 96 per cent of all deaths from natural disasters occur in developing countries. By 2025, more than half of all people living in developing countries will be "highly vulnerable" to floods and storms. They are also likely to be most affected by the results of conventional foreign debt.

Servicing foreign debt in Mozambique, which suffered immeasurable damage and loss of life as a result of floods this year, has drained the country of precious resources for many years. Even after relief, Mozambique could still have to spend Dollars 45m a year on debt servicing - more than it spends on primary healthcare or basic education. Similar examples occur from Central America to Bangladesh.

Yet apart from imposing harmful debt servicing, industrialised countries are responsible for a larger and potentially more damaging ecological debt - a debt for which, as yet, no accounting system exists to force repayment. Reckless use of fossil fuels has created the spectre of climate change. The issue produces unlikely allegiances. A survey of corporate chief executives at last year's Davos summit came to the same conclusion as a recent survey of 50 leading environmentalists: global warming is real and the biggest issue we face.

A letter co-signed by the under secretary of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the chief executive of the UK Meteorological Office concluded: "The rapid rate of warming since 1976 - approximately 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade - is consistent with the projected rate of warming based on human- induced effects."

To solve the problem or, at least, mitigate its worst effects, all nations will have to live within one global environmental budget. We all depend on the atmosphere and we all have an equal right to its services, an equal right to pollute. If we add more than our fair share of pollution we are running up a carbon debt. Currently, industrialised countries generate over 54 times more carbon dioxide pollution per person than the least developed countries. A typical G8 citizen uses fossil fuels at a rate 10 times above the threshold for sustainable per capita consumption.

Each day that passes without a radical shift in consumption, the carbon debt to the global community grows. So, 10 years from now, as the G8 sit and argue about how to repay their debt to the world's poor, what advice should we give them? Faced with conventional debts, the poorest countries were told, and expected, radically to restructure their economies. Poor countries should now, in the face of climate change, be able to propose a reverse form of economic adjustment on the carbon debtors.

Instead of old-style structural adjustment programmes, the challenge will be to devise sustainability adjustment programmes for the rich. Klaus Topfer, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, called for a 90 per cent cut